City Spy: Mass exodus to Escape the City

Monday 24 May 2010 11:51 BST

On the way out? Lloyds chief executive Eric Daniels

Which firm's employees yearn to leave the City and head off to pastures new? Escape the City is a London-based website that helps unfulfilled City workers find exciting opportunities outside the Square Mile.

Online since March this year, they've now got 12,000 members and are signing up new ones at the rate of 1,000 a month. So where are they from, which are the companies where staff dissatisfaction levels might be highest?

In the list of the top 10 corporate intranets that have registered the most hits on the website in the past three months comprises, in order (with the first the most hits): PwC, Deloitte Touche, Deutsche, Ernst & Young, KPMG, JPMorgan, Allen & Overy, NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland and Credit Suisse.

But who's looking to get in?

What will Lord Mandelson do next? Don't be surprised if he lands a job in business, in PR — either for a City agency or for a major corporation...

Daniels in lion's den at Lloyds

According to the gloss being put on Lloyds Banking Group chairman Sir Win Bischoff's approach to Lord Davies about succeeding Eric Daniels as the bank's chief executive, it was only with an eye to the distant future and all Bischoff is doing is sounding out potential long-term successors.

Hmmm. City Spy trusts that Bischoff did not say how fed up he was with Daniels, and that what was required is a total clearout of the Lloyds old guard. Presumably as well, Bischoff made no mention of options galore being available to the new chief executive...

Crynair takes the Michael

How is Michael O'Leary going to talk his way out of this? A disgruntled Ryanair customer has set up a spoof website called Crynair, a very realistic copy of Ryanair's own logo and site, only this one isn't quite so complementary.

There's a bright, flashing ad offering "1 MILLION SEATS FREE!" with the terms and conditions: "You just need to pay more for the return, plus all the credit card, admin, check in, baggage fees."

Elsewhere on the mock site, which is yellow and blue all over, just like Ryanair's, holidaymakers are offered the opportunity to "go somewhere you've never heard of!" and a note reads: "The Office of Fair Trading have been on our case again, saying that our charges are unfair. As Britain's Favourite Airline, obviously our customers are happy with the costs — and remember, you can avoid the charges completely when paying with rare Nepalese coins."

Then there's the realms of "customer service stories", for example: "I love the way they make it clear they hate me, but especially hate my kids. I love the exhilaration of the stampede from gate to plane..." City Spy suspects it won't be long before Ryanair's lawyers close it down.

James Sassoon hedges bets

Tory City adviser Sir James Sassoon knows how to hedge his bets. He was Gordon Brown's City ambassador before defecting to the Tories. Recently, he became chairman of Merchants Trust, the FTSE 250-listed investment trust — presumably in case there wasn't a sweeping Tory victory or he did not get preferment.

He had nothing to fear: the former UBS Warburg banker is the new Commercial Secretary at the Treasury, complete with peerage. So it's goodbye Merchants, hello Lords.

How different it could have been...

Simon Walker missed out on being selected as a Tory MP and, as chairman of the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, he is having to fight those who would have been his colleagues over plans for an increase in capital gains tax.

He says: "Britain already has a relatively high rate of CGT (in Australia, New Zealand, Holland, Hong Kong, Switzerland among other countries the rate is zero) and the last time that a government here raised the rate of CGT from 10% to 18% (Labour in 2007), the revenues accumulated fell sharply from £5.3 billion in 2007-08 to £2.5 billion in 2009-10. The BVCA will, therefore, be actively engaging with ministers to urge them not to make hasty decisions in this complicated area."

Welcome back, Tim Wheeler

The Bob Dylan-quoting sacked boss of Brixton, the industrial estates developer, is returning to property but to a different stamping ground. Together with a friend, he's launching the Residential Land Fund, a £20 million residential investment scheme.

Wheeler was fired last year and took his former employer to industrial tribunal, claiming unfair dismissal. The tribunal ruled against him, saying that he was so obsessed with negotiating his retirement package at Brixton that it stopped him doing his job properly as the CEO of a company trying to survive the slump.

Asda's handy andies

Weird... how Andy (Clarke) has replaced Andy (Bond) at the top of Asda and both men went to the same school, The King's School in Grantham, at the same time.

...and alphabet soup

Doug McMillon, chief executive of cultish Walmart International, Asda's parent, jokes that as Andy Bond had the initials AB and Andy Clarke, AC, the next Asda chief will be someone with the initials AD... But is he joking, really?

Today's lesson

Latest publication from the International Monetary Fund is "The Making of Good Supervision: Learning to Say No'".